


That Common Burn

by mytimehaspassed



Category: Less Than Kind
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny’s first client is short and neat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Common Burn

**THAT COMMON BURN**  
LESS THAN KIND  
Danny/Josh; Danny/OCs  
 **WARNINGS** : Mafia/Rentboy!AU; drug use; prostitution  
 **NOTES** : forestfucker asked for a Danny/Josh fic. I just had to make it a Mafia!AU and rentboy fic. :D

Danny’s first client is short and neat. He’s an American businessman that takes the bus up from Grand Forks and orders two fingers of scotch in the hotel bar. He sits in the lobby and pretends to read Tuesday’s newspaper and Danny slides into the seat next to him and only orders a water and he keeps swinging his leg into the American’s leg and the American keeps raising his eyebrow and looking at him pointedly and Danny just ignores him until the American finally coughs and asks him if he’s one of Blecher’s boys, and Danny smiles and says yes and the American says good and to follow him.

It doesn’t take long, actually. And, after the American finishes panting into the hollow of Danny’s neck, his skin like fire lighting up everywhere he touches him, Danny slides out of the bed to roll up a joint from his backpack. The American asks him how old he is, and Danny doesn’t say anything, blowing out smoke in thin ovals from his mouth, and the American says, well, and he pauses as he slips back into his pants, buttoning up his crisp, white business shirt, he says, the room’s paid for, so Danny might as well stay.

Danny smiles and says thank you with nothing more than his teeth, and the American leaves the money on the table in an unmarked envelope like he’s been told to do, and Danny tries not to even look at it, and the door clicks shut behind him, and Danny struggles through the breathing exercises that Sheldon had taught him in the group home, except that it doesn’t stop the bile that rises to the top of his throat, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to throw up.

He calls the phone number he’s been given and leaves a simple, coded message in the exact words he’s been told to say, and he takes the longest, hottest shower of his life, and he gets into bed with nothing on.

And it’s still the best sleep Danny’s gotten in three years.

***

Sheldon had found him in Ottawa, debating the illegal jump over the border. When he introduced himself, he never mentioned that he was a Blecher, but that’s probably because Danny would have known what he wanted. It’s just as well, Danny knows, because this is probably better than an American jail cell, and at least the hotels have warm beds and cable TVs.

Sheldon had told him it wouldn’t be for long, anyway.

Sheldon had told him that the boys never last.

***

He meets Josh because Sheldon’s mom sets fire to a synagogue. Danny has to take the rabbi out back and calm him down in the only way that he knows how, and the rabbi palms the back of Danny’s neck and weeps into his yarmulke, and Sam sends Josh with an unmarked envelope full of cash and tells him to hand it to the rabbi, and Danny leans against the brick wall and breathes steadily in and out, watching his cigarette burn down to the filter.

Josh says, “C’mon,” and Danny goes.

***

It turns out that Josh is a failed TV actor, hired by Sam as muscle for some of the more illegal operations around Winnipeg, and Danny asks if he’s ever been in anything he would have seen, and Josh tells him the name of a show Danny’s never heard of, and Danny says that he forgot to mention that if it wasn’t porn, he probably wouldn’t know it, and Josh gives him a look and turns on the radio, loud, and Danny lights another cigarette and shuts it off.

Danny says, “We are we going?”

And Josh says, “A hotel,” his hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, and Danny raises his eyebrows and pulls out the driver’s license he stole from Josh’s wallet and looks at the picture and the name there.

“I thought you said your name was Josh Blair,” Danny says, and Josh looks over at him and frowns, making a grab for his license.

“Give me that,” he says. “And it is.”

“So,” Danny says, drawing out the o, “Your dad is a crime lord, your brother is some kind of genius, and your mom just burned down a church.”

“Synagogue,” Josh says, making another grab for the license, the car swerving in the ice and snow. “And, yeah.”

“Jesus,” Danny says, sliding down a little in his seat. “I thought my life was fucked.”

“You have no idea,” Josh says.

***

Josh rents them a room and tells him to wait inside, and Danny says okay, and starts taking off his clothes, and Josh says, whoa, his hands help up, and Danny says, what, sitting on the bed to take off his shoes. “You’re not,” Josh says, and looks away, and then looks back again, “We’re not,” he grits his teeth and puts his hands down by his sides. “Wait here and don’t take anything else off.”

Danny shrugs and says, okay, leaving one of his socks still on, his pants half open as he lays back on the bed. Josh leaves and doesn’t come back for forty-five minutes, which is just enough time for Danny to raid the mini fridge and drink all of the little bottles of alcohol. He’s still half naked and pleasantly buzzed when Josh steps through the door, and Danny tells him that he doesn’t have to do anything too rough if Josh is still confused.

“I’m not gay,” Josh sighs, and Danny rolls his eyes and says whatever.

“My dad’s going to drop off a client in twenty minutes, but you need to behave until then.”

“Whatever,” Danny says again, and flops back on the bed.

Josh notices the bottles on the table, and looks at Danny. “Did you drink all these?”

“Liquid courage,” Danny says, and he smiles. “Hey, you got any weed?”

“No,” Josh says, and Danny pulls out the baggie he found in Josh’s bag and calls him a liar.

“Give me that,” Josh says, and Danny lets him take it from him, mostly because he’s already rolled a joint and tucked it in his pocket for later. “Where did Sheldon even find you?”

“Ottawa,” Danny says, and leans up on his elbows. “My mom said we were going on vacation, so we packed up everything and headed to the airport, but she left when I went to the bathroom. So I just hopped a bus downtown.”

Josh doesn’t say anything, but it looks like he wants to, so Danny says, “Sheldon offered me a sixty-forty split. I thought that was probably better than finding somebody to blow in the bus station bathroom.”

Josh raises an eyebrow. “Dad told me it was seventy-thirty.”

Danny grins, his teeth bright under the fluorescents. “We’re still negotiating.”

***

The client that walks into the hotel room is young and nervous and Danny smiles like it’s all good and takes it soft and slow and whispers encouraging words into his ear and lets him bite into Danny’s shoulder when he moves against him, and doesn’t tell him that he loves him, but doesn’t not say it, either, in his touch and taste and the way he cups the man’s head as he pulls him in for a kiss. The client pays triple the asking price and leaves with a soft, relaxed glow about him and when Josh comes back into the room, Danny smiles up at him from the messy sheets.

“So, you’re kind of an actor, too,” Josh says.

And Danny laughs and says he’s never thought of it that way.

***

Josh picks him up and drives him to hotels and never talks about the girlfriend that leaves lipstick stains on the underside of his neck, never talks about the auditions he still goes to, or the money that his father slips him in the mornings to give to Danny, stacks of hundreds that Danny uses to buy clothes and weed and booze. It’s not so bad, Danny knows, because it was either this or finding some douchebag to take him in and pay him in bruises, or, worse, looking for the father he never knew he had, and Josh doesn’t pity him or look at him like he’s insane like Sheldon sometimes does, which is nice and altogether encouraging, so when Josh doesn’t leave him right away one night at the hotel, Danny doesn’t stop himself from kissing him.

“Shit,” he says as he pulls away. “I’m sorry.”

Josh doesn’t say anything, but mostly because he only looks at Danny for a second, pulling in a long, painful breath, before he kisses him back.

They fuck before the client knocks on the door to be let in, and Josh panics for a moment when he can’t find his shoes, but Danny finds them under the bed and tells him to get out into the hall because he can’t do his heterosexual freak out in front of a client, and Josh goes and doesn’t look back at Danny, who thinks that maybe this was a huge mistake, especially when the client licks the junction between Danny’s neck and collarbone and Danny arches up and accidentally says Josh’s name.

***

Josh says they can’t do this, but it’s somewhere between Danny’s belly button and the top of his jeans, and Danny pulls in a shuttering breath and agrees, but neither of them make a move to stop.

***

It’s easy to hide it from Sam, who will tell Josh a time and a place and ask him about his girlfriend who thinks she’s won because Josh has stopped mentioning moving to LA every week, and Josh will smile and make a face, and take Danny to the hotel hours ahead of schedule and fuck him on the bed or in the shower or on top of the table where the client will leave the money after he’s marked every place on Danny that Josh has already touched.

Neither of them says anything.

Neither of them mentions this thing that happens when they’re alone and Josh can’t keep his hands off of Danny and Danny can’t keep his mouth off of Josh and, afterwards, where they will curl up in the messy sheets and smoke pot and talk about stupid stuff, and Danny doesn’t miss the fact that he’s not getting paid, because Josh feels more real than any of the clients he’s ever fucked, even when he pretends to be himself, even when Josh asks a question and Danny’s first instinct is to lie, because that’s his first instinct with everybody that he wants to keep around.

Danny is loyal and pliant and easy to please with his clients, and he watches them leave and he watches Josh come in, and it’s only for a split second, only for a moment that he sees it, the anger that flicks across Josh’s face, whole and unbroken, and Danny knows just like he always knows.

Danny knows just like he always fucking knows. He is going to fuck up everything.

***

Sheldon gives him the name and address on a piece of lined paper, and tells him that he can’t ever tell Sam who gave it to him.

Danny tells him okay, and tells his thanks, and says, “Tell Josh,” but pauses because he’s not sure if he can speak without giving everything away, but Sheldon nods anyway like he knows, and Danny coughs and says, “Tell Josh that I’m sorry.”

And Sheldon says that he will.

***

He hears later that two of the hotels he had slept in had burned to the ground. He hears that Sam had given a generous amount to both of the property managers because everyone knew his wife liked to play with matches and that any scrutiny from the authorities would be bad for business, but Danny knows, Danny fucking knows just like he always knows, that it wasn’t Ann who set those fires.

***

His dad answers on the first ring of the doorbell.


End file.
